First Look at Zaius Server Platform from Google, Rackspace Collaboration

By asullivan - October 17, 2016

In April of this year, Rackspace and Google announced plans to collaborate on a new OpenPOWER/Open Compute server platform, codenamed Zaius.

Included in that platform were a bunch of exciting advancements, including POWER9 processors with on-chip accelerators, PCI-Express Gen4, a variety of interfaces for cache-coherent co-processors, a new and improved open firmware stack and 48 volt power input in an Open Rack v2 form factor.

We are now pleased to announce the first public release of our draft Open Compute Project specification for Zaius, available at opencompute.org. This release is special for three reasons:

Having access to the spec this early gives you a chance to participate in the development process, or to fork your own solution, based on the foundation we’ve created.

Most components used in this solution are modular, and re-usable elsewhere in other form factors. You can borrow a lot of what’s in our specification material, in many other kinds of solutions.

If you’ve never participated in server design and development before, watching the spec, as we update and iterate on it, will give you some insight into how the process works.

The release also includes information on the Barreleye G2 chassis, which houses the Zaius motherboard. Similar to the approach taken with Barreleye G1, the draft is a work in progress, and will be expanded and modified as our project progresses.

As we test and improve our design, we’ll be incorporating community feedback. We will continue to revise the specification and deliver more design collateral (board schematics and layouts, chassis mechanical files, rack-level integration guidance and more).

Our industry must take a new approach if we are to continue the economic gains we enjoyed under Moore’s Law. The next generation of servers may be the last ones that bring meaningful performance advances, using only general processing (CPUs) and memory (DRAM) models.

Hardware will change (adding in FPGAs, ASICs, GPUs, new memory tiers and new IO models). Software will change with it (software development tools, operating systems, applications and management tools). And it will be better for all of us if the power to make those changes rests in the hands of a large developer community, rather than the hands of a few.

OpenPOWER, Open Compute and initiatives like Barreleye and Zaius don’t just bring new servers into the world — they offer a unique opportunity to be part of this inevitable, exciting change. Beyond just reading a blog or the tech press, you can get involved.

Through our leadership in open communities, Rackspace is assisting in the creation of an open environment where technical problem solving is a shared opportunity.

It has been our pleasure to work jointly with Google, and we appreciate the enormous amount of experience and development resources Google brings to the table. Our deep engagement with IBM and Ingrasys continues, and we’re grateful for the involvement of Mellanox, Samsung, Nvidia, Xilinx, Broadcom and others. Each has made meaningful investments to make this open development process a success.

This incredible team of partners recently released Barreleye G1 into the market, with a rich set options. With Google joining us, we anticipate Barreleye G2 and Zaius will provide even more (and more powerful) choices.

These movements alter the status quo in our industry, and bring novel, community-driven solutions to very difficult problems. We hope you’re excited about these new projects, and continue to follow our progress. We encourage you to engage with us via the forums available at opencompute.org and openpowerfoundation.org.